Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories.
Jenna Johnson has been promoted to vice president and editor in chief of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. She takes the baton from Eric Chinski, who will become senior executive editor, closing out fifteen years as editor in chief. Johnson, whose list includes Luster by Raven Leilani and Severance by Ling Ma, was praised by publisher and incoming president Mitzi Angel for her “exquisite taste” and “reputation for working with intelligence, savvy, and determination.” (Publishers Weekly)
Over in the U.K., Bernardine Evaristo is set to become the second woman and first writer of color to serve as president of the Royal Society of Literature. Evaristo has already been involved with the organization as vice president and has aided the society’s efforts to become more inclusive, including by leading a panel to bring in sixty fellows from underrepresented communities. (Brittle Paper)
A copy of New Chronicles of Rebecca by Kate Douglas Wiggin that had been checked out for one hundred and ten years was recently returned to the library system in Boise, Idaho. Library staff do not know who checked out or who returned the book. (New York Times)
“I’m interested not in the authority of the artist but in the authority of the reader. I believe all meaning gets made when the reader makes it.” Percival Everett, the author of Telephone, explains his belief in the primacy of the reader. (Believer)
“Even the quite short stories can be exhaustive: it might just be one paragraph, but it exhausts all possibilities to the point of slight absurdity.” In an interview with the Guardian, Lydia Davis reflects on her “exhaustive impulse.”
“I took no poetic license in this collection. Every detail is a detail that I encountered in my research of personal interviews or articles or courthouse documents or press clippings.” Steven Reigns shares why and how he chose to consider the life of David Acer—a dentist accused of infecting patients with HIV—through poetry. (Rumpus)
The Los Angeles Times profiles author and former mechanic and street racer Lou Mathews, noting his eminence in the Los Angeles writing scene as both a writer and teacher. “Lou was the first person to ever pull me aside and say that I had talent,” says author Dana Johnson.
The robot Ai-Da, invented by Aidan Meller, recently wrote a poem inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy and performed it at the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. (CNN)
